Western Expansion: Topics
• The Native Americans
• Settlement of the West
• The Bonanza West
• Conclusion: The Meaning of the West

The Native Americans:
• Life of the Plains Indians
• Indian Policy
• Finial Battles on the Plains
• The end of tribal life
• “saving” The Indians
• Hellan Hunt Jackson
• NA Contributions
1877 is the beginning of “modern” American history.
Hayes was president and some feel he is a fraud
Most people live on Eastern Seaboard. Many overcrowding. Manufacturing and limited land space. People want to live west but the Indians were there…. In 1867 Horace Greeley urged people in NYC to move west “if you move west you will crowd nobody and not starve” because nobody was there but there were over QMil Natives living in the West. The gold rush started and disturbed the native western population.
1: Life on the plains for NA. 2/3 of them lived on the great plains. It’s one of the most hazardous at the time. They knew how to survive. The plains Indians depended buffalo. They can kill and take only what they need and use the entire kill. The Whites left the carcass. It was used by them for clothes, tools, food, shelter, ect. Before the horse the NA would hunt them by running them over a cliff or scaring them into a trap. The Spanish introduces the horse to them. They discovered that it was a great work and hunting animal. They were migratory and would travel with the food source. Some tribes would be sever thousand people but would break into smaller bands of 500 to 700. Ever band had their own government. This created conflict in territory, fishing rights, and food. They did have a division of labor, Men hunted, fished, traded, supervised ceremonies. Med would clear ground for planning but women would do the planting. Women cared for children, grew gardens, took care of the camp, The women would take the buffalo apart after it was killed by men.
The white man called the Indians red skins.
2: Natives had many different traditions, that earth was “mother earth” and was there for all to live on. Everything was communal. They shared everything with the tribe. They did not believe in personal property. The Indians were called barbaric, and savages. The whites needed to move them out so we could move west. Tried to make one big reservation west of the Mississippi. Problems included, tribal conflicts, for hunting, fishing, camps, and religious beliefs. It didn’t work out. It was called Indian Country. The Indians were obviously uneducated. They were told that it was for their own good and for their own protection. There was an act put in place that no whites would be allowed to go on the reservation but it wasn’t enforced. The land would be there forever for them.
2 tribes that had been put on the country started to bitterly fight each other. The US tried to stop it. The tribes ended up wanting peace. One sent 700 tribes people to where the other tribe was, and were intercepted by Colorado militia COL Chibington, attacked the Indians while they slept, scalped, clubbed, and stabbed and all were killed. The chibington massacre. IT ended up outraging many Americans….this opened their eyes as to how we treated the Indians. This also is where they learned how to scalp.
The Sioux Were on the war path….The Bozman tail was put through the Indian territory so whites could get to the west. Red cloud wanted to stop the building of the trail. He did stop them…. He ended up being chased by an army column….but he was letting them follow them….into a trap, ambushed them and wiped out 82 soldiers. Yet another massacre. Many people thought they needed to be tamed. Americans were split on what to do. The solution was to divide the territory. Some were moved54000 to the black hills into “Dakoda Territory” 86000 were moved to Oklahoma. This did not solve all of the problems…..the land was thought to be undesirable to the whites because we didn’t actually know what was there.

Important Battles:
• Custers Last Stand
• Nez Perz: Chief Joseph flees to Canada.
• Wounded knee

In NA culture when you reach a certain age…adulthood… you would go on a vision quest. Sent out into the wilderness with NOTHING and stayed out there until you had a vision. Wovoka had persistent visions. His vision was called the Ghost dance. He went around from tribe to tribe and told them about it. He made them wear a special white shirt and then dance. You kept dancing until “something” happens. When the dance ends all the trees that were lost to the whites would come back, all animals killed would come back, all NA would come back to life and the Whites would die. The dance would bring the world back to the way it was. The US didn’t like him for obvious reasons. The was a rebel. At Wounded knee the Indians believed in this dance. Shots were fired…and there was a massacre. 200 MWC were killed. (look for pictures) The bodies were frozen it was so cold. This was the last major rebellion from the Indians.
Now that they were on the reservations the US didn’t know what to do with them so they tried to assimilate them into society. Indian schools were set up. Children were forced and removed from their families to go to these schools. Biggest was in Carlisle PA. No food given until you got there.
All were lined up and the superintendant greeted them. He gave them the rules, had their clothes removed, shaved their heads and put into US clothes. You were forbidden to speak their languages. In the dorms there were beds, and some furniture. Many never had seen beds and some refused to sleep in them. The would beat them if they didn’t sleep in the beds. This was meant to educate them in the white man’s way. The families would then reject them because they were too white…then they would tried the white world and be rejected there too. The slogan was kill the Indian and save the man.
The Us government tries to assimilate their way of life. The Dawes Act: It gave each Indian family 160 acres and they HAD to farm it. The US still owned it for 25 years. The issue was the Indians didn’t know how to farm. They had no seeds, tools, or money. They also had no homes. The land was not good for farming. It didn’t support crops. The act was mostly a failure. Most left the land or destroyed it out of spite.
Buffalo Stats:
• 1865 there were millions roaming the plains
• 3 million were being killed by whites annually
• By 1883 there were mostly extinct
• By 1900 barely any Indians left because of the movements and the destruction of the buffalo.
Many Indian reservations are deplorable to this day. They are the poorest group of people to this day and have the worst social issues.
Helen Hunt Jackson: A Century of Dishonor. One of the best descriptions of what Indians had to face.
Indian Contribution:
• Lacrosse
• Basements
• Apartments
• Engineering
• I glues
• Tobacco
• First co ed public school
• Oil

• For water proofing

• Glue

• Corking

• tonic, make up

• bath oil

The Settlement of the West:
Why people wanted to move west.
• Jobs
• Gold rush
• Land ownership
• Health reason
• Adventure
• Escape the drab routine or factory life
• It was too overcrowded east
• Religious freedom (mostly Mormons
• To better themselves
1877-1900 430 million acres were settled west of the Mississippi.
Men and women on the Overland Trail:
They went to CA and Oregon. The settled in many different parts because of the terrain. Half a mil went to the trail and made to Cali. Mostly by wagon train. 5 to 500 wagons. You had to abide by the rules and you could only bring what they said you could bring. IF you broke down the train wouldn’t wait you had to catch up. Half to the trains went the full 2000 miles to the coast. Many women didn’t want to go but did just to follow the men. Large family groups moved together to share all of the problems and reward for making the trip. If you did not follow the rules you were kicked off the train. If conditions were good the trip took 6 months. The MWC had different tasks….
There were many accidents on the route. Kids were run over, falls into ditches, drowning, wagons cracked in half in the water, Poisonous plants. Pregnant women would give birth and take no break after the birth. Some men would hunt for food but didn’t know all of the animals. This resulted in sickness on the trains. They would support each other during their tasks.
Land for the taking. It benifited the government to get people there. The land was cheap to buy.
Acts:
• The Homestead Act: 1862 it was passed. You go to an office to become a homesteader: you pay a 10 dollar fee, sign a document saying you want to move out west. They had a map laid out by land marks. The land marks were confusing and crude. With this you could get 160 acres of land in the west marked on the map. In the document you pledged to make something out of it in 5 years. You had to live on it. There was a lot of fraud and sometimes people found someone on the last they were supposed to have. For the most part it was a hugely successful act.
They had agents that would enforce these acts and check on you in 5 years to see if you did cultivate it. If you didn’t you HAD to leave.
After a while people started to complain and people needed more land
• Timber Culture Act adjusted the homestead act. If you were a homesteader you could apply for 160 more. You had to plant trees on a quarter of the land. There was no guarantee that the land would be next to each other. Only if you were lucky that would happen….others would exchange land to make it easier.
• Desert Land Act of 1877. You could buy up to 640 acres in arid states for 1.25 an acre. You had to irrigate it in 3 years. The problem was that it took a long time to work properly due to fraud and water issues. Agents would come around to see if you irrigated the land. You just had to show that there was water on the property. ANY water.
• Timber and stone act of 1878. 160 acres for 2.50 Cali, NA, OR, WA. People didn’t want it because you couldn’t cultivate it. But people found that this land provided perfect building materials.
The Spanish speaking South West, CA, AZ, NM, TX CO. They are the ones that brought in the ways to irrigate, raise stock, mining, weaving, architecture ect. Their heritage helped shaped the societies in these areas. There is still a very strong influence.
The Bonanza West:
The Explosion of the west.
Mining Bonanza: This was the first thing to attract people to the west, gold silver ect. People did not go to farm most went to be shop keepers to supply the miners. Things that people needed.
Starting to mine didn’t take much. A shovel and a pan. Almost nobody profited and if they did most drank it away. Companies started coming in to mine the deep gold as the surface gold was taken by local individuals. The mining camps we rugged. Not many buildings, most slept outside, maybe a saloon. No Law enforcement for the most part. If you struck gold you had to register so nobody else could take it. If someone came in on a registered property you would be tarred and feathered you, killed you, or you got kicked out of the camp. The back room of the saloon was the jail for some thieves. There was no sanitation, many diseases existed. Many existing towns started as mining camps. Some abandoned camps survived as ghost towns.
If they didn’t like the rules the miners would go on strike. They wouldn’t work, go to saloons, and close govt offices.
Immigrant miners would try to stay with the same group. Americans were upset about the immigrants because the immigrants would send the money home to their families. This would not help the economy. It turned out that they were better miners because they worked harder and cheaper. They were very mad at the Chinese because their mines were better as were their shops. 1882 congress passed the Chinese exclusion act to stop immigration of Chinese for 10 years. All of the gold rush ended in the 1890s.

Gold from the roots up: Cattle Bonanza. Ranchers learned of how valuable the plains were. The grasses were perfect for cattle. The west was mostly an open range. Branding was invented at this time to stop fraud and theft. Round ups. They organized how to round up animals and how to rope animals.
Moving cattle:
Joseph McCoy was a farmer from IL solved the problem of moving cattle from West to East. He said let’s not drive them across the country let’s bring them to a point and let the take the rail road’s the rest of the way to the east in box cars. In a rush they would cram over 50 or 60 in the cars. The trains weren’t ventilated and were in deplorable conditions. Some would be dead, sickly. Some would be trampled as they got out of the train. So it worked but they didn’t arrive in good shape.
Instead of them on the train alive he thought lets drive them, slaughter them and then send the meat to the east….The meat showed up rotten. They still sold it to people even in that shape.
Another idea was lets slaughter them and then we will ice the meat…. Where would you get the ice? Didn’t work.
They said you could buy TX steer for 7 a head and if it lived to the east you would get 70 a head.
You needed 8 men to drive cattle (mostly Mexican and Black) an d were lead by a trail boss and he earned 120 a month. The cowboys earned 35 a month.
1880 6mil head of cattle was taken to the eastern markets. Joseph Glidden came up with an idea. Barbed wire.
The Winter of 1885 was one of the worst winters followed by one of the hottest summers. 1886 and 1887 winter was the worst in recorded western history. When the snow thawed they found thousands of dead cattle against the wire.
1905 was the last round up.
The Farming Bonanza:
Many went west to try and start a farm. The encountered many different problems with the farms. There was little surface water. You had to dig a well in some cases it would be 500 ft deep. Diggers charged 2 dollars a foot. No wind mills were available. Lumber was scares for homes and barns. Fence had to be ordered. To put up a wooden fence on a homestead cost 1000 dollars. They would put up a sod house rather than a lumber house because it was so cheap and easy to build. Most farms were days away from each other. The harsh weather hurt them as well…. Grasshoppers came by the 10s of thousands like storms. They would black out the sun. They would eat everything in their paths.

New farming methods:
• iron plows
• Fencing, boarders
• What crops to plant

Discontent on the farm:
Oliver Kelley was a Department of agriculture agent. He got tired of going around because he was so hated because of his job. He noticed the women would stop him and keeps and feed him because the women were lonely and wanted information
He formed the “Grange” He thought that farmers needed social life because they are so isolated. He started with the grange. It was a social cultural and educational group.
Socially he would gather farmers and have them build something to have a social in it. At them they would talk and discuss problems, and socialize and share information
Cultural it brought people together and they learned things about each other
Educational they would invite people from the east to come out or other countries to learn about fusion and other things.
This ended a lot of the isolation

The Final Fling:
Oklahoma The last area that made of the frontier. Whites wanted it but it was Indian lands. Pres Harrison gave the Indians days to get off of the land. He announced that at noon April 22 1889 that this territory would be open for settlement. The whites came and registered for this land and at 12 noon the claimants ran at gun fire and had to “stake their claim”. Many were trampled to death. By SUNSET 12000 Homesteads were claimed. By 9 that night there was a new city that had 10000 residents called Oklahoma city. Western expansion ended with the final fling by pushing the natives off the land.

The meaning of the west. The west witnessed one of the greatest migrations in American history
Fredrick Jackson Turner wrote a piece that said that the frontier is what truly shaped the American citizen.

Class 2: 12JUL2010
Industrialization:
• Industrial Development
• Railroads: Trunk lines, First Transcontental Railroad, Problems of Groeth
• An Industrial Empire: Inventions-Steele, Oil, Iron- vertical integration
• The Sellers
• The Wage Earners
• Industrializations Benefits and Costs

Industrial Development:
This started in England. In 1896 in Phili the held the Centenial Expo. They were supposed to have many exhibits about what we had accomplished. People that came were impressed by what we had invented. It was held on 100 acres. Total of 180 buildings in the expo. It attracted over 9mil visitors from around the world. One booth was 2 stories. There was a gate and door and sign that said take the ride of your life. This was a demo of the Elevator. Ottis. Nobody would go on it. People said that they would go to hell if they went on. They got 4 people to get on it. They thought that they would die but were brave enough to try. It actually took 23 minutes because of problems. Once up there was an area with a wood fence. The woman ran out and broke her legs after she fled the elevator. Another was a booth that displayed bananas. It was named the exotic banana. The people there didn’t peel it because they didn’t know how to eat it. There was another man there with a drink. His name was Hiers. (Root Beer) The first Bike was introduced at this expo. Many people were hurt from falling off of it. One was the Corliss engine. A Steam Engine. It was located in Machinery Hall. It supplied the power for the 8000 other machines at the expo
Women in 1876 were not allowed to do many things as jobs but by 1896 they had come a long way. Women had a building that they built to show where they came from and where they wanted to go.
There was a huge fountain at the entrance of the expo filled w/ beer. Women were upset by this because at the time many were against alcohol. They wanted to fill it with water.
By 1900 we exceeded all other industrial nations put together.
Why was the US ready to industrialize? We had an abundance of natural resources. Coal, iron, lumber, ect. For it to spread you needed labor and we had an abundance of labor. Many immigrants came here. Because of its spread the urban population spread too. People, corporations and government were also willing to invest in the businesses. The owners of the businesses were called the “Captains of industries”. Is they were poor leaders called “Robber Barons”
Rail Roads
• The RR were the most important part of spreading industrializations. They were called the most signifigant. RR were considered better than canals as direct routes, greater speed, greater safety and control, more dependable scheduals, you caould move more good and year round service. If you were to travel by stage or horseback you could cover maybe 50 miles in a day if you pushed it, by RR you could do 50 miles in around an hour. The RR was considered the best way that united the US population by bring isolated parts together. Hey helped to make mass production possible.
Trunk Lines:
Trunk lines started to take shape to lint the eastern seaports with everything clear to the West.
• Baltamore and Ohio RR
• The Eire RR
• The NY Central RR
• The Pennsylvania RR
Inventions that came from RR
• Air Brakes
• Refrigerated cars
• Heated Cars
Passenger miles increased 3 fold between 1870 1900. Different Classes of car started come.
The first Transcontinental RR:
Congress passed legislation to pass it. They had RR companies bid on the rights to build it, Union Pacific from Westward from NB and the Central Pacific would go from the West Coast. For every track laid they would received a certain amout of land around the track. They couldn’t get people to build it so they companies looked for immigrants that needed work. CP hired almost all Chinese, the UP haired mostly Irish. On May 10 1869 they ment at a place called Promontory UT. Both presidents of the companies were there. There was a gold spive that both would stake in the ground. A photographer was there and before he took it someone stopped him. They asked all the Chinese and Irish to leave and all of the foremans and the presidents were only in it. They only wanted Americans in the pic. Fortunately there were more than one photographer there. In the years after, 1877 1900 many others were built.
Problems with RR
• Over building
• Accidents due to crowding
• Uncontrolled competition
• Free passes or specials for favors
• Rebates to ride because people wouldn’t ride
• “Rake Wars” Managers that felt threatened secretly met tried to negotiate to share track but that didn’t last.
• They tried to consolidate with others as a way to solve revenue issues. That didn’t work because of too much competition.
• Some were so desperate they turned to banks or wealthy for loans like JP Morgan.
JP tried to eliminate all of the RR competition. He invited many to a conference to negotiate to stop the competition. They were willing to help, but they found out that there was a fee to be in this meeting. JP collected over 1mil for this. He did end up fixing waste and much of the competition. He took control of much of the RR system in just a few years.
An Industrial Empire:
New inventions like Oil, Steel. Steel was perfected during this time. With Steel we could build longer bridges, taller buildings, faster ships, stronger plows.
• Vertical Integration. When you own every means of production from raw materials up in the creation of a product.
• Andrew Carnegie. History sees him as the Master of Industry. Cam to US in 1848 from Scottland. Worked in Pittsburg as a Bobbin Boy. He worked hard and tried to keep himself looking good. He got a job in a telegraph office and later Thomas Scott of The PA RR hired him. When he was 24 in 1859 he became a division superintendant. On his way up he tried to learn everything about the business. He learned to invest in the businesses. He went into steel in 1872 because it was perfected. He built his own steel works. He disliked Unions. There were strives at many of his shops because of his wages. He would give them something that he wanted like a minor lift in wages. 1878 he won the contract to supply the steel for the Brooklyn Bridge. He realized he could produce structural beams. This lead him to build some of the first sky scrapers. 1888 he had a profit of 3mil. In 1900 he was worth 40mil. He combined many of his steel business to form US steel the largest steel company in the world and the worlds first billion dollar company. But he worked the businesses until he got bored. In 1901 he sold the steel businesses. Sold it for a half of a billion. He didn’t keep any of the money in the sale. He went to many churches and bought them organs, and pianos. He set up education funds and scholarships. He wanted to make others happy.
Edwin Drake drilled the first oil well in PA. He was covered in the oil. He was drilling for water and said he didn’t want it. They bottled the oil to see what he could do with it.
John D Rockefeller came into some money and decided after the family talked with him to go into oil. He started Standard oil in 1863. He hated waste and combined and bought out the smaller companies. He was not very charming but could be nice. He was short tempered. HE made surprise visits to his plants. He sat and watched all of the workers produce. By the end of the day he says to one of the assistants he wanted any kind of paper they had. One brings him a piece of paper. The paper was pink, and calls one of the Forman the names of a few people. He was firing the people because of how they were working. This is where pink slips came from. He also bribed politions, exploited workers and hired workers to be spies for him. By 1879 he owned 90% of the country’s oil refining capacity. He started the Holding Company. He retired in 1897 worth 900mil

1790 1860 US issued 36000 patents. In the 1890s they issued 200000 patents.
• In the 1860’s cyris W Fields improved the Trans Atlantic Cable.
• Typewriter. Revolutionized office work, communication
• 1879 Cash register
• Adding machine 1888
• High speed sewing machines (ready made clothes)
• New food processes.
• Refrigerated cars
• Swift produced the first RR car meat distribution. Ford copied the assembly line off of his meat packaging companies.
• Telephone 1876. By 1905 there were over 10 mil in the country
• Thomas Edison: First Invention Lab. In NJ he set up. He would take the patents from the people that did the work in his lab. Used JP Morgan to create The Edison Lighting Company.
The Sellers:
• The General Store. People could buy, food, weapons, liqure, seeds, farming equipment, clothes, ect. You were limited on what the store had. The owners were behind the counters and they knew everything about the town and the people. Once you got all on your list they would go on your way. If you didn’t have money to pay you would barter. Bartering was allowed in the store. Work or goods were traded. Records were kept on debt. A man by the Sears and Roebuck started an advertisement of things they had to sell. They went to the general store and left the flyer. This was the begining of the mail order catalog. The clerk would put in the order for you.
• RH Macy, Watermaker’s, Marshall’s decided that the Mail order catalog was to chaotic and made the department store.
• Department store. RH Macy, Wantermakers, Mashall’s decided that the Mail order catalog was to chaotic and made the department store.
• They were a big hit. They had daycare because of how long people would be there. They had eateries.
• The Chain Store: The Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company was one of the first. Opened their store in 1859. By 1915 they had 100 across the country. FW Woolworth was like a 5 and dime. When they opened up their chain stores they realized that people needed to identify them. They needed signage that would ID them.
• Malls
People realized that they needed to sample a location before they built a chain store. Marketing needed to be done to see if people needed the product or if it was affordable. They encouraged people to try the products. They started targeted marketing.
The Wage Earners:
Men Women and Children that made a living. Before 1900 most wage earners worked between 10 and 15 hours a day 6 days a week. If they didn’t do this they were fired. Skilled would earn 10-20 cents an hour. If unskilled 8-10. Most people earned 450 a year when it took 600 to live decently. The work was very dangerous in industry. No safety standards were in place. Many illnesses in some in them. Many respiratory sicknesses, no ventilation, no hearing protection, low light. Oil lamps provided light. Fires were common. The bread winner was not always the man alone. Sometimes it was all of the family members. The children sometimes made more money than the parents. 1877 1900 the number of working children rose 130%. The number of women went up 20%. Many of the women would start working at age 12 before marriage and then they would raise the family. Office work started to be done by women. Women also became nurses, teachers, and librarians. They usually received half the pay as men. Many times young women wouldn’t be hired because they knew they would leave for marriage. Immigrants that came here had many issues. They were the first to be fired and the last to be hired.
The culture of work:
Most people hated factory work because of the conditions, no day light, long hours, strict rules. Mill girls were not allowed to talk, they could be fined. No jokes, or free breaks. There was a huge migration of people looking for work as farms failed.
Labor Unrest:
If people didn’t like the conditions they had to go to their unions. Labor Unions started before the Civil War. 1866 one union was founded by William Sylvis. National Labor Union. The NLU formed because smaller ones were having issues. In 1869 Stephens started the Knights of Labor. It was a secret organization. They did this for a short period of time because it started to falter. Terrance Powderly said that they should not be secret. He made the union known. They welcomed all laborers. They accepted skilled and unskilled. They didn’t know who to fight for as far as the skilled and unskilled were concerned. They didn’t believe in the strike because they said it didn’t work. They advocated for an 8 hour work day. They wanted to abolish child labor, wanted to end “drunkenness” at the workplace. The membership started to grow. The KoL never had organized strikes and this hurt their cause. They had poor leadership. They put people in power that didn’t know what they were doing. This and the riot ended them.
1897 The American Federation of Labor: They only excepted skilled laborers. Samuel Gompors was president. He was elected 40 times. His object was to better the lives of the workers. He was not afraid of strikes or boycotts. They were very well organized. By 1901 they had over 1mil members. They tried to put people in the job they were supposed to be in.
The Haymarket Riot:
1886. It was at the McCormick Harvest Works. Many unions were involved. The workers decided to take matters in their own hands after the unions failed. 1886 may 3rd they workers went on strike. They listed their demands, and said it would be peaceful. The police in Chicago didn’t want them to strike. They intervened shots were fired and 2 workers were killed. The workers fled. They were very upset and met the next day. They were pissed about the death and the failure of the strike. They told the police that they were going to meet in Haymarket square. They showed up with their families to show that they wanted to be their peacefully. The police showed double in force. A bomb was thrown and many police were wounded. They attacked the workers again and killed 4 more workers. The workers fled again. Someone had to pay for the riot. The police put spies in the work force to find out who organized it. This was the first time anarchist came up in the U.S. There are 2 types, Violent and non Violent. They pointed at the immigrants (Russians) as being the organizers. They came up with 8 immigrants for inciting the riot. They were put in front of a mock trial. They were found guilty of murder. 4 hung, 3 put to jail and 1 killed himself. No evidence of them ever being involved in the riot.
Industrialization benefits and costs:
• Increased power of the us market
• Countries started to recongnize us
• Standards of living started to rise
• Became the largest indurialized nation in the world
• Social instability became a common theme, living condidtion, diet, splitting of families
• Environmentally, pollution of rivers, land was littered with garbage and toxic waste.
• Labor saving products
• Things became more affordable
• New industries started
• New medical practices

Class 3: 14JUL2010

Immigration: 1877- 1900
• Why they came
• Waves of immigrants
• American protective association
• Fresh Air Fund
• Immigration Practices
• Immigrants and the city
• City Governments- Political Machines- WM Tweed head of Tammany Hall
• Immigration Restriction League
• Ellis Island

• They came because of job opportunities. They also came to become wealthy and to start their own businesses. Because many people had heard of all the open land they came for farm land. They came as farmers and wanted to stay that way in many cases. They came to escape war and religious persecution. Food shortages in EU resulted in people coming here. To avoid many diseases that ran wild in other countries.

• The wave of 1877 to 1890 may historians say that over 6 mil came during this time period. By 1890 15 of America’s population was foreign born. 1890 to 1920 was the second wave that brought 15mil in. 2/3rd of them when they first came were males. Most between 15 and 40. A husband would come with the elder son and then bring over the rest of the family. Most were unskilled and most settled on the eastern seaboard. Most from the 1880s were from northern and western Europe and were protestant and after 1880 they came from southern and eastern Europe and were Catholics and Jews. With all of the immigrants coming in the American people felt threatened…..

• Americans started feeling threatened by the immigrants because of many issues. The American Protection Association was founded in the 1890’s and “would limit or end ALL immigration”. They were instrumental in getting many bills passed. They prohibited criminals and or mental issues from entering the country. At ellis Island you are questioned and screened. There were 29 questions that you needed to answer. One was “Do you have a criminal record or medical instability?” They also wanted to forbid polygamists from coming here. They also stopped contract laborers from coming in. They didn’t like them because they would just send the money back home. The US came up with an idea to limit immigration. For every person that came here they had to pay a .50 cent tax. If they didn’t have it they were held. Their sponsor had to pay it for them or they were deported. Word spread about the tax and people started to bring the money with them so we then would just increase it at a moment’s notice.

• The Fresh Air Fund of 1899 was put into place to get kids out of the crowded cities.

• Immigrants and the city. Most immigrants that came here were from rural areas. There Dad was the boss. When they came here this tradition was lost because of the work that they had to do. The dad would be in the factory and mom had to take up the job. Immigrants didn’t totally lose their culture. They would hold their languages and teach it to their kids, they practiced their religious beliefs. They wanted to stay in contact with their homeland so they would read home news papers. They set up their own schools and observed their own holidays. There were problems though.

• City Governments: They would basically bribe people to vote for them. The offered immigrants what they needed to get into office and then abused their power once they were in. WM Tweed was highly corrupt. He realized that all of the people that needed help had nowhere to go. He had Tammany Hall Built. He has it designed. It would cost 250000. He went to the immigrants for the money and donations. It ended up costing over 13000000 and wasn’t completed until after he left office. He had a 1.5mil plumber. His plasterer cost over 1mil. He used people for their donations. He did provide 60000jobs to build it. He was arrested for corruption and escaped to Spain where he was caught and jailed again where he died. When they opened ip up the sent notice to the people that it was opening. When people went in people started taking off their shoes and picking up the kids because of how clean it was. They felt ripped off and robbed because they know it wasn’t for them it was for the machine. After a while the feds made political machines illegal.

• The immigration restriction league founded in 1894 by Boston lawyers and professors. They were alarmed by the amount of immigrants coming in. They tried everything they could to stop it. They acted on a literacy bill that was vetoed. Everything that they tried to do eventurally failed. The members ended up getting bored and they disbanded. They said that everything that others tried to do were done by the uneducated and that they could do it however they failed completely.

• Ellis Island. 1892-1954 about 12000000 came through Ellis Island to get here. When it opened it was only 3 acres. It ended up being 27 and a half acres to accommodate everyone coming in. The land was last owned by Samuel Ellis. Being a small island it bearly rose abouve the high tide. It was used by pirates, used as a fort, ammo depot, and then purchased. The US bought it from NYC in 1808 and built a series of fortifications on it. Prior to it Castle Garden was used to process immigrants. They renovated Ellis Island to be use for the immigrants. The dirt that filled and built up Ellis Island came from the digging of the NY Subways. In 1892 it opened. The first was a 15yo girl named Anne Moore. She came with her 2 brothers. It was her Birthday too. In 1897 there was a fire that burned the immigration station. There were no deaths but the records were destroyed. When the US rebuilds they made the buildings fireproof. It took 3 years to rebuild. In DEC 1900 when the buildings opened over 2000 were processed that day. Coming to the island on the ships: there were different classes. Some didn’t have to be processed as they were first or second class passengers. Only steerage or third class. The 1 and2 class accommodations were cabins, privacy, allowed on deck allowed to mingle and treated well. Agents would interview you and unless you showed sign of disease you didn’t have to be processes. Only the 3 were mandated to go through the process. The conditions on the 3 sections were deplorable and disease ridden. Once they arrived they were made to wait their turn and go through the process. One of the myths is that many people were turned away. In fact on 2% were. They built many buildings, The Main Building, Hospitals, Dorms, disease wards (this is was a place where you kept you to see if you got better. There were no doctors or nurses) During wwi and wwii EI more people were detained as precautions about people went up. During wwii it was used as a training ground as well. It closed in 1954 because of leveling of immigration, there were more ports in the country then, and it was too expensive. Arrnie Peterson was the last person to be processed. For many years it sat abandoned. The main building was looted many times, for benches and other items. It was decided to preserve the island ad great expense. 1965 LBJ declared EI to be a part of the Statue of Liberty national park 162mil to renovate it. It was reopened to the public in 1990. It is now called the Ellis Island Immigration Museum.

The Process:
• They were screened in their home country, employment, mental, medical, criminal.
• Single file off the boat and sent to the main building.
• Go to baggage room drop off luggage and sit on benches until it was their turn
• People were taken in groups to different stations.
• Go up stairs to registry room. This is where inspection began.
• You are singled out if you show any signs of illness at all!
• Children were asked their names to make sure they weren’t deaf or dumb.
• If they looked over 2 they were taken away from their mothers to see if they could walk
• Doctors only had a few seconds to screen you. They checked you for 60 symptoms in less than 10 minutes.
• They checked your eyes by raising your lids with fingers, button hook or hair pin. This person was called the button hook man. Was the most dreaded person on the island
• If you were thought to be diseased you were marked with blue chalk. This meant you had to go through further screening.
• Groups were not allowed to interact. (Listen to recording. About hour and a half in)
• It took 5 hours to be processed if nothing went wrong. If something slowed you down to could take you months.
• The last step was to exchange your money and then be taken to Manhattan.
There were 350 babies born on the island. And there were many deaths that happened at the island as well many were called mysterious.

Urbanization:
• Positive and Negative Characteristics
• Jacob Riis-How the other half lives Brought to life all the problems of the city through photo journalism.
• ***James E Ware- Dumbbell Tenements: Rose 7 or 8 stories high. It had 30 apts 4 rooms a piece. All on a lot 25’ by 100’. In the apts there would be 4 to 8 families.
• Problems
• Urban mass transit
• Improvements

1. Positives: jobs, wages, cheaper housing, friends and relatives from the old country, excitement, “glitter” the lights and noise
2. Negatives: Overcrowding, no housing, shortage of jobs, culture clashes, no sanitation of any kind.
Once people moved to the city the became more mobile. 1877 1910 the rural population doubled and the city population went up 7 fold. In the early years cities were known as walking cities because it took a short distance to cross it.
Transportation started to emerge as cities grew. As people did better they would move to the outskirts of the city to get away from the poverty of the city.
There were no real police, or fire protection.
***Outhouse were outlawed and 2 bathrooms had to be installed in each tenement.

Problems were they didn’t have sidewalks, animals still pulled carts, out houses smelled up the air. In 1900 fewer than 1 out of 10 drank filtered water. Factories created tons of pollution. Homicide became very common. Gangs started to form to protect areas, suicide was very common, and alcoholism was a very big problem. There were many accidents involving animals trampling people.
There was such congestion that they realized that had to fix it. Elevated Subway was developed. (EL) The EL blacked street by blocking light and soot made them dirty. Houses shook and smelled because of it. The noise was awful. It helped but created more problems for the city.
Boston made the first subway. The subway was like the elevator….people feared it. It aleivated the problem but didn’t eliminate it. Rails like these helped the suburbs and made the city reach further.
There were some improvements in cities. Pavement on the streets, cobble stone, electricity, sanitation and public water supplys that were clean and plumbed into the houses. They banned people from dumping trash on the rivers. They banned throwing trash out the windows. Public health departments started. Fire departments developed.
Daily Life:
1877-1900 life expectancy was increasing. Better food and medicines were available. News papers were available for people to read about world and local events.
• Leisure and entertainment
• Changes in family life
• Education
• African Americans- Booker T Washington-WEB Du Bois
• Restrictions on black voting rights
• Intimidations
• Grandfather laws
• Jim Crow Laws
• Settlement Houses- Jane Addams

Leisure: cards, chess, checkers, author cards, bat gammon, crocket, (one of the most popular games because both sexes could play). How to books on crafts and hobbies. Traveling circuses, horse races, balloon rides, bicycle races, BASEBALL, boxing, ect.
Changes in Family Life: See above and listen to record.
Education: Early years was a one room school house. All ages went to it. You could have any grade in it at a time. The teacher was not a professional teacher. Public schools and professional teachers were needed. 1877-1900 there were teacher training schools (normal schools). UML this building was one. By 1900 there were only 31 states that made attendanve mandatory. In 1870 there were 160 public HS in America, by 1900 there were 6000. Government did aid education. 1870 60 mil by 1900 it was 253 mil. The need for education was there so the people worked for it. Illiteracy started to decline. School was tough, you coluld be smacked for not listening. There were many discrepancy in the system. The South was very far behind. 1896 there was
Plessy vs Ferguson: Out of this case came the doctrine of separate by equal. That meant separate but equal was constitutional. Separate schools for blacks and whites in the south.
Kindergarten was started around 1870s or 1899. They realized that you cant take a child and make them start learning without socialization skills.
Charles W Eliot: He was president of Harvard. He used to listen to classes and he would ask students what they learned. He thought students needed a better well rounded education. Electives were made mandatory because of him. He made lectures and discussions mandatory. He introduced many of the modern classes. The 101 classes…wanted all classes to be stepping stones.